What!?!?!

The Top 3 questions asked of me by the natives when it is discovered that I am not from Finland:

1.) Where are you from?
you mean the really nasally accented english missing the letter "r" where it should be and placed in words where it doesn't belong doesn't give it away?? I would have thought the random shouting of "Go BoSox" would have given it away. Ladies and gents, the news of my beloved Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series even made the news here in the land of lakes, reindeer, cross country skiing and Santa.

2.) What brought you to Finland?
Sarcastic answer: A plane. No really. Actually it is a long story, but I am here and I like it.

3.) WHY!?!?!
Now this question is usually a result of my answer to question 2. For some odd reason I have noticed that the Finns I meet tend to be shocked that I like their country. I am not making sweeping generalizations or anything here folks; so put down the torches and pitchforks. I am merely giving you MY experiences with the lovely Finnish people who have crossed my path.

One of the things that Finns will tell you is that Finnish is easy. Well for Finns it is. I am not trying to sound "brassy", as some here would say, but give an honest assessment of the Finnish language from a person who speaks several other languages (all 3 are romance languages thank you very much). The Finnish language is like nothing you have ever experienced. As my very good friend Kristin pointed out one evening when she visited "HOLY(insert explicative here)! how many letters ARE there in that word!?!?!?" Before you get your nickers in a twist and start commenting on my possible prudishness by not writing the explicative she she uttered in the above anecdote, my family is going to be reading this stuff buck-o so just calm yourself right down and have another moccachino or whatever the heck it is you drink!

Right, where was I?....Oh yeah the Finnish language or "Holy Hell Somebody Shove Bamboo Shoots Under My Fingernails It Would Hurt Less". No, seriously. I have been taking Finnish classes and sometimes my friend's 2 year old daughter speaks better Finnish than I do. Honestly. I am baffled at times. To make it even more fun, my great new Finnish friends have adopted the "sink or swim" philosophy with me. Most of the time it is quite enjoyable. They don't laugh at my ability to confuse words and conjugate the past tense of the verb "to see" into the past tense of another verb..you know the one I mean. Aww come on!..I can't type it here (my aforementioned family would be very disappointed in me). For my part, I don't laugh at their inability to correctly use pronouns :) Him, Her, She, He - all very difficult for Finns as the language has no gender. Honestly! No REALLY..I am not making this stuff up! One word for all of those: Hän. Finnish also has unbelievably long words. You want proof? The longest word in Finnish is: Epäjärjestelmällisyydellistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän
Say THAT one 3 times fast. Go on, I tripple dog dare you!